James Whitman

Panic at the Library!

Why is the man in the red beret so angry? Why do so many people gather around the fish tank in the foyer? And why must that awful computer voice announce the time every fifteen minutes? Horrific events are afoot — events that will cause a Panic at the Library!

From October to December 2015, I worked with a brilliant group of young writers in South Shields Central Library. We met every week for ten weeks, and in that time we wrote Panic at the Library! — a tale of love and loss and librarians gone bad.

We set the story in the library, and based many of the characters on actual visitors. Then we unleashed a plague of problems upon these poor souls (in the story). Each writer contributed chapters to the book, which we published and shared with local libraries.

But that’s not all! The wonderful Jay Sykes is helping us to adapt the book for audio, and we have recorded roughly half of the book. We hope to be finished in time for Christmas 2016, so stay tuned for updates.